GIGABYTE BRIX GB-BXi7-4500 Review: Intel Core i7 in a UCFF PC
by Ganesh T S on October 9, 2014 7:00 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - I
The GIGABYTE GB-BXi7-4500 was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. We revamped our benchmark suite earlier this year after the publication of the Intel D54250WYK NUC review. We reran some of the new benchmarks on the older PCs also, but some of them couldn't be run on loaner samples. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same.
Futuremark PCMark 8
PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU in the system as well as the clock speeds. The i7-4500U is clocked higher than the i5-4250U in the Intel NUCs, but it is not as powerful as, say, the i7-4770R in the BRIX Pro. This is understandable, given the wide gulf in the TDPs (15W for the i7-4500U vs. 45W for the i7-4770R and 47W for the i5-4200H).
Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks
3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15
We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results. As expected, the units with powerful processors and dedicated / higher-end GPUs fare better than the BXi7-4500U. However, an interesting aspect to note is that the single-threaded performance of the i7-4500U seems to be a tad better compared to the i5-4200H (which has a much higher TDP). However, multi-threaded rendering looks to be TDP-constrained, as the i5-4200H pulls ahead.
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torp - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
That's a nice power brick over there, as long as the case :)When will they learn and integrate the PSU?
kevith - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
I´m afraid it won´t happen, it´s much easier and cheaper to put a brick in the box, as long as there are multitudes of different voltages from the wall around the world.Would be nice, tho´.
Shiitaki - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
It is reviews like this that point out Apple isn't over priced. This thing is 750 dollars? No it's not! Are you telling your readers to steal the operating system? You need to be including that in the final price unless you expect your readers to be thieves.I love the idea of a miniaturized computer, but the premium intel charges for those parts is too much, and for significantly less performance no less. It's one of those rare times when a Civic costs more than a Cadillac!
And to make matters worse, your build doesn't even include AC networking. And networking is going to be important to a machine that doesn't have much local storage. Intel integrated graphics, so this won't be good for more than a general purpose computer.
Use the more reasonable cost and performing laptop parts, make the computer 50 percent taller to accommodate a slow spinning fan, and price it according to the less expensive parts and you'd have a winner. If you can make a 500 dollar laptop with screen, a hard drive, and memory; you can make a 250 dollar bare bone small computer.
Even at twice the size, it could be a much more compelling product. At what these things cost, a Mac mini is better deal, after you add a SSD.
Great idea making a small computer, carried too far.
stunta - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I got myself a Zotac ZBOX-CI520NANO with Core i3 (Haswell), CRUCIAL 256GB SSD and 4 GB RAM. This a fanless unit with 802.11ac built in. Connectivity options are plenty. All this for around $450. This is a solid performer. Although Gigabyte UCFF PCs get good reviews, they don't seem to compare favorably to the latest Zotac units with respect to bang-for-the-buck. $490 just for the barebones is pretty steep.D. Lister - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
I wonder if it is really good marketing to call an electronic device "Brix".milkod2001 - Monday, October 13, 2014 - link
imagine this box twice in size(still smaller then mini/micro atx systems) with some decent proper desktop CPU(not necessary the latest, the greatest), 970m Maxwell, 8-16gb ram, 256 gb SSD, build in PSU. All that for $1000(including OS). Is it doable?It would not replace heavy workstations but it might be enough for most content creators and it would also play any 1080p games with ease if needed.
speculatrix - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
I'd avoid the Intel AC 7260 WiFI card listed for the NUC, I've had one and it was very troublesome.